Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk


Hugh Bigod was a member of the powerful early Norman Bigod family
and was for a short time the 3rd Earl of Norfolk.

Origins

He was born c. 1182, the eldest son of Roger Bigod, 2nd Earl of Norfolk by his wife Ida de Tosny.

Career

In 1215 he was one of the twenty-five sureties of Magna Carta of King John. He succeeded to his father’s estates in 1221.

Marriage and children

In late 1206 or early 1207, Hugh married Maud Marshal, daughter of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, Marshal of England, by his wife Isabel de Clare, 4th Countess of Pembroke. They had four, or possibly five, children:
Contrary to the assertion of Frederick Lewis Weis, Ancestral Roots, there is no evidence for a fourth son called Simon Bigod. A man of that name appears as a witness to one of Earl Hugh's charters, but as the eighteenth name in a list of twenty, suggesting no close connection to the main branch of the family. He is also named among the knights who surrendered to King John at Framlingham Castle in 1216. He was a probably a descendant of Hugh or William Bigod, half-brothers to Earl Roger II Bigod.
Simon le Bigot is recognized as the third son of Hugh Bigod in Francis Blomefield, 'North Erpingham Hundred: Felbrigg', in An Essay Towards A Topographical History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 8, pp. 107–119. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/topographical-hist-norfolk/vol8/pp107-119 . He is also recognized by Gary Boyd Roberts in The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants to the American Colonies or the United States Vol 1 p528.

Death

Hugh died on 18 February 1225. Very soon after Hugh's death, his widow Maud remarried William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey.

Hugh Bigod in fiction

Hugh Bigod and his wife are the main characters in Elizabeth Chadwick's To Defy a King. They also appear as secondary characters in novels chronicling their parents such as The Time of Singing published in the USA as For the King's Favor; The Greatest Knight; and The Scarlet Lion.

Ancestry